US Politics

[Jpan85]

I find it funny that Trump during 2016 ran his election on saying that America's infrastructure was in shambles and need huge investment and since he was a builder he would get it back to being world class. Now the republicans are fighting Biden over a major investment in infrastructure. 

[Tracker]

46 minutes ago, Jpan85 said:

I find it funny that Trump during 2016 ran his election on saying that America's infrastructure was in shambles and need huge investment and since he was a builder he would get it back to being world class. Now the republicans are fighting Biden over a major investment in infrastructure. 

The GOP is waaay past grasping at the nuances of irony.  They are into monomaniacal intent to create a system of politics that exclusively benefits them and can be manipulated at their will.

[Wanna-B-Fanboy]

Well, the man speaks the truth...

 

 

[TrueBlue4ever]

2 hours ago, Tracker said:

The GOP is waaay past grasping at the nuances of irony.  They are into monomaniacal intent to create a system of politics that exclusively benefits them and can be manipulated at their will.

What benefits them right now is to create fear and division to gain a base. Their entire platform is not based on policy but on the spin that “democrats/liberalism/socialism is evil” so it doesn’t matter if what Dems are pushing now is exactly what Republicans wanted before, so long as the Dems are in favour of it, the GQP is opposed. If you strapped down every Republican in the Senate or Congress and injected them with truth serum I would wager that less than a half dozen truly believe the election was stolen. The rest just know peddling the lie keeps the base engaged and is their best (only?) way not to get steamrolled by the larger liberal base come election time. All that matters is staying in power, that is the true platform. 

[HardCoreBlue]

 

Andrea Junker put it the best: 'The longer justice waits, the more emboldened these traitors will feel'.

True.

The Justice system is a farce that has been exposed by Trump, his enablers, and the GOP.

These criminals just taunt the Justice system, lie their faces off, commit crimes in broad daylight with their brazed bravado and the most they get is twitter shaming and finger wagging (e.g., the latest example would be Bill Barr and how the Judge concluded he mislead people with his summary of Mueller's report).

The Justice System needs a major overhaul, major.

[Tracker]

Liz Cheney was behind the key move that stopped Trump from using military to overturn election: report
   
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) was the organizer of an open letter by all living former Defense Secretaries against the military intervening in election disputes.

The revelation was made to Susan Glasser of The New Yorker by Eric Edelman, a friend of Cheney's who served as an advisor to her father.

"Cheney's rupture with the House Republican Conference has become all but final in recent days, but it has been months in the making. Edelman revealed that Cheney herself secretly orchestrated an unprecedented op-ed in the Washington Post by all ten living former Defense Secretaries, including her father, warning against Trump's efforts to politicize the military," Glasser reported.

"Cheney's rupture with the House Republican Conference has become all but final in recent days, but it has been months in the making. Edelman revealed that Cheney herself secretly orchestrated an unprecedented op-ed in the Washington Post by all ten living former Defense Secretaries, including her father, warning against Trump's efforts to politicize the military," Glasser reported.

It wasn't the only action she took.

"Little noticed at the time was another Cheney effort to combat Trump's post-election lies, a twenty-one-page memo written by Cheney and her husband, Phil Perry, an attorney, and circulated on January 3rd to the entire House Republican Conference. In it, Cheney debunked Trump's false claims about election fraud and warned her colleagues that voting to overturn the election results, as Trump was insisting, would 'set an exceptionally dangerous precedent.' But, of course, they did not listen. Even after the storming of the Capitol, a hundred and forty-seven Republican lawmakers voted against accepting the election results," Glaser wrote.

(Now we know why the Trump GOPers have the vendetta against Liz Cheney)

[Tracker]

Arizona’s Secretary Of State Targeted By Death Threats Amid Conspiracy-Fueled Ballot Recount

Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs said she’s been the target of multiple death threats amid the ongoing review and recount of 2020 election ballots in her state — a Republican-led effort whose legitimacy has been questioned by Hobbs and other election officials.

Hobbs, a Democrat and the state’s top election official, said Thursday that a man had called her office “saying I deserve to die and wanting to know ‘what she is wearing so she’ll be easy to get.’” Hobbs said that “it was one of at least three such threats today.”

The secretary of state added that she and a staffer were later “chased” outside their office by a man she didn’t know.

[Tracker]

Trump DOJ secretly obtained WaPo phone records: report
   
There's a new bombshell report on the actions by the Justice Department under Donald Trump.

"The Trump Justice Department secretly obtained Washington Post journalists' phone records and tried to obtain their email records over reporting they did in the early months of the Trump administration on Russia's role in the 2016 election, according to government letters and officials," Devlin Barrett reported on Friday for The Washington Post.

"In three separate letters dated May 3 and addressed to Post reporters Ellen Nakashima and Greg Miller, and former Post reporter Adam Entous, the Justice Department wrote they were 'hereby notified that pursuant to legal process the United States Department of Justice received toll records associated with the following telephone numbers for the period from April 15, 2017 to July 31, 2017.' The letters listed work, home or cellphone numbers covering that three-and-a-half-month period."

Jeff Sessions was attorney general during the time period the DOJ was investigating.

The newspaper's acting executive editor, Cameron Barr, blasted the news.

"We are deeply troubled by this use of government power to seek access to the communications of journalists. The Department of Justice should immediately make clear its reasons for this intrusion into the activities of reporters doing their jobs, an activity protected under the First Amendment," he said.

Trump DOJ secretly obtained WaPo phone records: report - Alternet.org

[HardCoreBlue]

1 hour ago, Tracker said:

Trump DOJ secretly obtained WaPo phone records: report
   
There's a new bombshell report on the actions by the Justice Department under Donald Trump.

"The Trump Justice Department secretly obtained Washington Post journalists' phone records and tried to obtain their email records over reporting they did in the early months of the Trump administration on Russia's role in the 2016 election, according to government letters and officials," Devlin Barrett reported on Friday for The Washington Post.

"In three separate letters dated May 3 and addressed to Post reporters Ellen Nakashima and Greg Miller, and former Post reporter Adam Entous, the Justice Department wrote they were 'hereby notified that pursuant to legal process the United States Department of Justice received toll records associated with the following telephone numbers for the period from April 15, 2017 to July 31, 2017.' The letters listed work, home or cellphone numbers covering that three-and-a-half-month period."

Jeff Sessions was attorney general during the time period the DOJ was investigating.

The newspaper's acting executive editor, Cameron Barr, blasted the news.

"We are deeply troubled by this use of government power to seek access to the communications of journalists. The Department of Justice should immediately make clear its reasons for this intrusion into the activities of reporters doing their jobs, an activity protected under the First Amendment," he said.

Trump DOJ secretly obtained WaPo phone records: report - Alternet.org

I think this word has lost its lustre.

[Tracker]

1 minute ago, HardCoreBlue said:

I think this word has lost its lustre.

We're almost there. It ought to be frightening to Americans that their president and his gang violated almost every law or tried to- spying on the media and threatening them, trying to use the US military to impose martial law, conspiring with a foreign adversary to influence the election and on and on. This has become so normalized that many Americans hardly notice, and that is probably what Trump's GOP wants.

[HardCoreBlue]

3 minutes ago, Tracker said:

We're almost there. It ought to be frightening to Americans that their president and his gang violated almost every law or tried to- spying on the media and threatening them, trying to use the US military to impose martial law, conspiring with a foreign adversary to influence the election and on and on. This has become so normalized that many Americans hardly notice, and that is probably what Trump's GOP wants.

Yup, you're not exaggerating. 

[Mark F]

2 hours ago, Tracker said:

In three separate letters dated May 3

2021, while illegal surveillance done in 2017.

would not have been informed if trump was reelected.

very intimidating to honest journalists.

https://fpif.org/

 

"The global spread of fascism is real, as real as the spread of COVID-19, and you better believe it."

 

Edited May 8, 2021 by Mark F

[Tracker]

Pro-Trump pastor shares bizarre conspiracy theory with his congregation to support his claims that Trump is still president
   
A self-proclaimed Christian prophet is circulating an unfounded conspiracy theory that he believes is proof that Donald Trump is still President of the United States.

According to Newsweek, megachurch pastor Johnny Enlow recently shared a Facebook post with his followers as he explained why he has reason to believe former President Donald Trump is still president. Enlow claims to have had a "vision" of Trump holding "a golden scepter" which he believes is proof that Trump is still in office.

Enlow claims that in his vision, he could see Trump "seated on a throne holding a golden scepter... [with] a golden crown on his head." He said the vision was Trump's "PRESENT status from heaven's perspective."

"Heaven does not recognize [Joe Biden] having any scepter nor wearing any crown. From heaven's perspective, there is only the legitimacy of [Trump]. God has assigned a massive contingency of angels to that scepter and to that crown."

Pro-Trump pastor shares bizarre conspiracy theory with his congregation to support his claims that Trump is still president - Alternet.org

[the watcher]

17 hours ago, Tracker said:

Pro-Trump pastor shares bizarre conspiracy theory with his congregation to support his claims that Trump is still president
   
A self-proclaimed Christian prophet is circulating an unfounded conspiracy theory that he believes is proof that Donald Trump is still President of the United States.

According to Newsweek, megachurch pastor Johnny Enlow recently shared a Facebook post with his followers as he explained why he has reason to believe former President Donald Trump is still president. Enlow claims to have had a "vision" of Trump holding "a golden scepter" which he believes is proof that Trump is still in office.

Enlow claims that in his vision, he could see Trump "seated on a throne holding a golden scepter... [with] a golden crown on his head." He said the vision was Trump's "PRESENT status from heaven's perspective."

"Heaven does not recognize [Joe Biden] having any scepter nor wearing any crown. From heaven's perspective, there is only the legitimacy of [Trump]. God has assigned a massive contingency of angels to that scepter and to that crown."

Pro-Trump pastor shares bizarre conspiracy theory with his congregation to support his claims that Trump is still president - Alternet.org

There has always been screwballs who either make this crap up or actually believe their own delusions. The big difference now is there are millions of others who believe them. 

[Tracker]

Maryland Governor Issues Blanket Pardon For Lynching Victims

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) on Saturday granted posthumous pardons to 34 lynching victims. His office said it was the first time a governor had issued a “blanket pardon” of this kind.

Some children were among those pardoned, including Howard Cooper, a 15-year-old Black boy who was hanged by a white mob in 1885, and 13-year-old Frederick “whose full name was lost to history,” Hogan said.

The governor signed the pardons at an event memorializing Howard, who was killed after an all-white jury found him guilty of raping a white woman. The woman never testified, but the jury reportedly reached its verdict in under a minute. Before Howard’s attorneys were able to appeal the conviction to the U.S. Supreme Court, the boy was dragged from a Baltimore County jailhouse by an angry mob and hanged on a nearby sycamore tree.

According to a historic marker that was unveiled Saturday at the site where Howard was lynched, the boy’s “body was displayed so angry white residents and local train passengers could see his corpse” and pieces of the rope that had been used to hang him were later “given away as souvenirs.”

“Howard’s mother, Henrietta, collected her child’s remains and buried him in an unmarked grave in Ruxton. No one was ever held accountable for her son’s lynching,” the marker reads. 

(Very magnanimous of them)

Jim Crow Ballot ‘Purity’ Phrase Yanked From Texas Vote Suppression Bill At Last Minute. GOP lawmakers ultimately decided not to advertise the segregationist nature of the voting measure.

A segregationist term from the Jim Crow era referring to the “purity” of ballots was yanked at the last minute before the Texas House passed a measure restricting voting.

Eighteen amendments — 13 of them from Democrats — were added to the Republican election bill before it was passed 78-64 Friday. 

But an initial fight was over the bill’s statement of purpose. It initially said that said the measure was designed to “preserve the purity of the ballot box” — a phrase “drafted specifically to disenfranchise Black voters following the Civil War,” Democratic Rep. Rafael Anchía told bill sponsor Rep. Briscoe Cain (R).

“Are you aware of the history of that?” he asked in comments on the floor.

“No, I’m sorry to hear that ... Those are troubling things,” Cain said.

Cain later noted that he’d be willing to agree to an amendment to change “purity” to “integrity or something,” reported the Austin-American Statesman. The word was stricken from the bill.

[Tracker]

‘WTF Is Wrong With You?’: NRA Trashed For Tasteless Meme After Mass Shooting

The National Rifle Association picked a really weird way to mark a Mother’s Day that began with a Colorado mass shooting that killed seven people. Seven people were killed on Sunday in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in the year’s 194th mass shooting, according to the nonprofit group Gun Violence Archive.  The wave of violence has led to new calls for gun control measures. 

But on Sunday ― Mother’s Day ― the National Rifle Association posted a meme suggesting that mothers arm their young daughters.

“MAMA DIDN’T RAISE A VICTIM” read the text over an image of a woman and a young girl with firearms.

[Tracker]

Right-wingers staking out hardware stores in pursuit of latest anti-Biden conspiracy theory
   
Amateur sleuths are racking up page views by staking out hardware stores and filming stack of lumber in the latest online conspiracy theory.

Lumber prices have tripled as demand for housing has jumped and the pandemic throttled production, but lumber-shortage truthers are recording videos of wood just as coronavirus skeptics filmed half-full hospital parking lots last year in an effort to prove the pandemic was a hoax, reported The Daily Beast.

"I'm just astounded at how much lumber is here, and I'm wondering why there's such a problem at the lumber yard," says the owner of a YouTube account called "Ken's Karpentry" in a widely viewed video. "We're still seeing the prices increase at the lumber yards, so I'm not sure why."

That video, with the blaring title "TRAIN LOADS OF LUMBER JUST STACKED UP !!!! Why," has been viewed nearly 500,000 times and was cited by the pro-Donald Trump blog Zero Hedge as proof that lumber prices were being artificially inflated.

"Could the lumber industry, controlled just by a few players, be pulling the playbook straight out of the diamond industry to limit supply to drive up prices?" wrote pseudonymous ZeroHedge writer "Tyler Durden."

Right-wingers staking out hardware stores in pursuit of latest anti-Biden conspiracy theory - Alternet.org

[JCon]

24 minutes ago, Tracker said:

Right-wingers staking out hardware stores in pursuit of latest anti-Biden conspiracy theory
   
Amateur sleuths are racking up page views by staking out hardware stores and filming stack of lumber in the latest online conspiracy theory.

Lumber prices have tripled as demand for housing has jumped and the pandemic throttled production, but lumber-shortage truthers are recording videos of wood just as coronavirus skeptics filmed half-full hospital parking lots last year in an effort to prove the pandemic was a hoax, reported The Daily Beast.

"I'm just astounded at how much lumber is here, and I'm wondering why there's such a problem at the lumber yard," says the owner of a YouTube account called "Ken's Karpentry" in a widely viewed video. "We're still seeing the prices increase at the lumber yards, so I'm not sure why."

That video, with the blaring title "TRAIN LOADS OF LUMBER JUST STACKED UP !!!! Why," has been viewed nearly 500,000 times and was cited by the pro-Donald Trump blog Zero Hedge as proof that lumber prices were being artificially inflated.

"Could the lumber industry, controlled just by a few players, be pulling the playbook straight out of the diamond industry to limit supply to drive up prices?" wrote pseudonymous ZeroHedge writer "Tyler Durden."

Right-wingers staking out hardware stores in pursuit of latest anti-Biden conspiracy theory - Alternet.org

It's like climate change, they simply cannot understand basic science. They're all morons.

[Wanna-B-Fanboy]

This thread is pretty revealing- most assumptions of corporate USA and the GQP relationship with Super Pacs and so on pretty spot on. In this thread though, it is still pretty gross to actually see it:

 

 

Edited May 11, 2021 by wanna-b-fanboy

[GCn20]

On 2021-05-06 at 12:45 PM, Tracker said:

The GOP is waaay past grasping at the nuances of irony.  They are into monomaniacal intent to create a system of politics that exclusively benefits them and can be manipulated at their will.

The Dems are EXACTLY the same. Are you some kind of noob to politics. You are dreaming in technicolor if your think that the likes of Biden and co. aren't behaving just as despicably as the GOP has.

2 hours ago, Tracker said:

Right-wingers staking out hardware stores in pursuit of latest anti-Biden conspiracy theory
   
Amateur sleuths are racking up page views by staking out hardware stores and filming stack of lumber in the latest online conspiracy theory.

Lumber prices have tripled as demand for housing has jumped and the pandemic throttled production, but lumber-shortage truthers are recording videos of wood just as coronavirus skeptics filmed half-full hospital parking lots last year in an effort to prove the pandemic was a hoax, reported The Daily Beast.

"I'm just astounded at how much lumber is here, and I'm wondering why there's such a problem at the lumber yard," says the owner of a YouTube account called "Ken's Karpentry" in a widely viewed video. "We're still seeing the prices increase at the lumber yards, so I'm not sure why."

That video, with the blaring title "TRAIN LOADS OF LUMBER JUST STACKED UP !!!! Why," has been viewed nearly 500,000 times and was cited by the pro-Donald Trump blog Zero Hedge as proof that lumber prices were being artificially inflated.

"Could the lumber industry, controlled just by a few players, be pulling the playbook straight out of the diamond industry to limit supply to drive up prices?" wrote pseudonymous ZeroHedge writer "Tyler Durden."

Right-wingers staking out hardware stores in pursuit of latest anti-Biden conspiracy theory - Alternet.org

Honestly, give your bias a rest. Pelosi led a witch hunt for years against Trump doing exactly the same thing. That's politics in 2021. Don't be so naive to think the left are some kind of virtue signallers. The far right and the far left factions of both parties are a disaster.

[GCn20]

On 2021-05-08 at 10:02 AM, Tracker said:

We're almost there. It ought to be frightening to Americans that their president and his gang violated almost every law or tried to- spying on the media and threatening them, trying to use the US military to impose martial law, conspiring with a foreign adversary to influence the election and on and on. This has become so normalized that many Americans hardly notice, and that is probably what Trump's GOP wants.

This is what Biden is banking on as well. Like he is above the fray, or the Clintons were....smh.

[GCn20]

It is a terribly sad state of affairs when we have a scandal ridden federal government that has proven to be borderline incompetent in it's handling of the pandemic and the CDN politics thread is 180 pages compared to US politics, that quite frankly, are none of our concern reaches close to 900. I guess if your guy is no good then draw the attention away...

[JCon]

31 minutes ago, GCn20 said:

The Dems are EXACTLY the same. Are you some kind of noob to politics. You are dreaming in technicolor if your think that the likes of Biden and co. aren't behaving just as despicably as the GOP has.

Honestly, give your bias a rest. Pelosi led a witch hunt for years against Trump doing exactly the same thing. That's politics in 2021. Don't be so naive to think the left are some kind of virtue signallers. The far right and the far left factions of both parties are a disaster.

Yeah, no. 

20 minutes ago, GCn20 said:

It is a terribly sad state of affairs when we have a scandal ridden federal government that has proven to be borderline incompetent in it's handling of the pandemic and the CDN politics thread is 180 pages compared to US politics, that quite frankly, are none of our concern reaches close to 900. I guess if your guy is no good then draw the attention away...

Whataboutism. 

[Wanna-B-Fanboy]

26 minutes ago, GCn20 said:

The Dems are EXACTLY the same. Are you some kind of noob to politics. You are dreaming in technicolor if your think that the likes of Biden and co. aren't behaving just as despicably as the GOP has.

How are you even equating the two? Serious question, what metric are you going by? 

I am honestly baffled (maybe I am a noob to politics), can you indulge me and give me a few examples, I haven't been as tuned in to US politics since Biden.

Also, the sheer volume of despicable actions on one side FAR outweighs the other. 

 

[JCon]

8 minutes ago, wanna-b-fanboy said:

How are you even equating the two? Serious question, what metric are you going by? 

I am honestly baffled (maybe I am a noob to politics), can you indulge me and give me a few examples, I haven't been as tuned in to US politics since Biden.

Also, the sheer volume of despicable actions on one side FAR outweighs the other. 

 

They will not accept the election results and tried to impose a fascist gov't in it's place. They attacked and murdered people. The alt-right, GOP is a cult.